Every Woman Needs a Pair of Red Shoes...

Dearborn spotted a bug and immediately summoned backup to help her investigate. (Silverfish; I squished it but they spent the next hour returning to the corner of the bathroom just to be absolutely sure it was gone.)

[ID: A photograph of the corner of my bathroom featuring raised wooden slats as flooring and the edge of a folding door; Dearborn the tortie is crouched behind the door, staring intently at the ground, while Polk the tabby creeps over to investigate.]

I finally managed to capture Polk's process of tucking herself under the sofa sheet to passive-aggressively inform me that she's cold. Under a minute, not bad.

[ID: A one minute video with ambient audio (no music or talking) which shows Polk the tabby, moving around my orange sofa which has a flannel sheet on it; over the course of the video Polk identifies a wrinkle in the sheet, paws at it, then manages to burrow under it and completely hide herself under the sheet, pulling her tail in after her.]

Madam Polkadot, she's no leg or all leg, no inbetween with her.

[ID: Three photos of Polk the tabby, lying curled up on the plaid duvet; in all three she has one back leg sticking out visibly, but the photos get progressively closer to her until the third demonstrates that her one extended leg is also covering both of her front paws and most of her tail in a truly ridiculous configuration.]

Dearborn doesn't know that I'm watching her through the cat cams when I go on vacation, so the reproachful look is just her resting "shame on you" face, but she definitely knows the funny noise is the camera switching on, and she's curious enough to come glare at it.

[ID: Two images; in the first, the cat cam in the hallway is looking down at a floor with rugs here and there. Dearborn the tortie is peering around the corner of a wall, sitting on one of the rugs and staring up at the camera with a look of antagonism. In the second, the bedroom cat-cam is looking at a corner of the windowsill on which it sits; Dearborn is sitting on a stool just below the windowsill, staring at the camera, very unimpressed by it.]

Cats truly do descend from tree-dwelling creatures.

[ID: A photograph of Dearborn the Tortie; she is lying on top of a folded piece of fleece fabric, on the platform of their massive cat tree in my living room. She looks comfortable and relaxed, and is gazing into the distance contemplatively.]

You abandon Dearborn? You leave her alone with only her sister, all her toys, a heated bed, two scratching posts, and a huge bowl of food like a MONSTER? For FIVE HOURS?

Jail for father!! Jail for father for -- is that catnip?

[ID: Dearborn the tortie is sitting on the sofa, dimly lit, gazing upwards past the camera with enormous and very sad eyes. I left her alone for a whole evening and she's not mad, she's disappointed.]

Cats are returning to windowsills and sunny spots on the furniture. Nature is healing.

[ID: Two photos of the cats; left, Polk the tabby is lying on a deep windowsill, fur a burnished gold. Right, Dearborn the tortie is lying on a busy patterned blanket, dappled in sunlight.]

The cryptids love being brushed, and they've discovered that if they catch me at the sink in the morning, combing my hair, I'll give them a quick comb as well. For several months now I've emerged from the shower every day to two impatient cats yelling for their morning salon styling. I got them a smaller, finer-toothed comb than mine, and they know which one is theirs and get excited when I pick it up.

Polk has also been suffering from dry skin, so I bought a bottle of spray moisturizer for cats, and every morning I spray their comb with moisturizer and then give them a brushing. It does make their coats very soft and Polk is less itchy all the time. But what I've realized is that aside from the shower, combing my hair is really the only morning toilette I do. I don't use product, but my cats do.

Which means, functionally, that my cats now have a more extensive morning beauty routine than I do.

[ID: Two photos; the first shows Dearborn the tortie, lying on the sofa amid heaps of pillows, lit by the sun and looking a little wild. The second shows just the face of Polk the tabby as she crouches on the duvet, peering out from under a pair of grey striped pajamas she has nestled into. They both look like they have very soft, sleek fur, because they do.]

I'm home! Dearborn is less talkative than Baby U but also less damp.

[ID: Dearborn the tortie is lying on the Second Best Quilt, on my lap, curled up into a semi-loaf. She is looking into the distance dramatically and appears super soft. Because she is.]

Did my laundry the other day and left a couple of clean, warm sheets and cold-weather items in the laundry bin while I put my socks away; when I returned like two minutes later, Polk had set up camp. Imagine leaning over to pull out your sheets and instead there's a cat, wearing a hat on her ass.

[ID: A photograph, shot downward into a fabric laundry bin, of Polk the tabby; she is lying on top of a sheet and looking up, and covering the back half of her body is a red and white striped hat. She looks cozy, and also slightly threatening.]

Our old man has lentigo! I never knew the name for it, we just call them his freckles.

@copperbadge

Yes! Polk has lentigo, which affects not just her nose but also her gums and the occasional patch of fur. It's one reason I think she and her tortie sister might actually be genetic siblings, not just colonymates born around the same time. As a baby her nose was almost entirely pink but it's getting bigger patches of black as she gets older. Getting her to hold still for a photo was not easy, but here's the best one I got:

If you look above her nose, between her eyes, there's a little dark spot there, which I call her "grease spot" because when she was a tiny kitten it looked like a little dot of grease, as though she'd been crawling around in a car engine, but it just never rubbed off.

I named her after the street, Polk Street in Chicago, but I call her Polkadot all the time because of her freckles.

[ID: Three images; all three show cats with dark freckles across the tips of their noses. The first is a longhair with pale cream fur and slightly more orange fur on its face; the second is an orange tabby with dark fur and the smallest freckles. The third is my cat, Polk, a dilute orange tabby, who is looking curiously at the camera with two large dark spots and several smaller ones scattered across her nose.]

Sometimes I feel like....somebody is watching meeeeee....

[ID: Dearborn the tortie is sitting on the end of one of my sofas, wedged between a fleece blanket printed to look like a tortilla and my couch end table, which is covered in stickers. She is mostly hidden behind the end table and looking up at the camera; just her eyes and ears are visible as she watches me go about my day.]

The bliss of two small cats on a heated bed cannot be measured.

[ID: A photograph of my bed, with its current green-and-white bedspread. Lumps under the blanket suggest that there are pillows it's covering; cuddled up, one to each lump, are Polk the tabby and Dearborn the tortie, in prime "prawn" sleeping position. Polk in particular has her head tucked back and eyes closed, looking especially blissed out. ]

She looks like she's betrayed I trapped her in the Sulk Gourd but she did this to herself. She loves to get in there and block the entry so she's in a cozy little felt nest. She's glaring up at me because I tugged it open so I could take her picture.

[ID: Polk the Tabby gazes up at the camera from inside a triangular covered pet bed; the opening, also triangular, has been mostly blocked off by the thin interior foam pad of the bed, and Polk is looking through a small oval gap.]

Dearborn constantly looks like she knows what I did and disapproves.

[ID: Dearborn the tortie is lying on a white-and-green bedspread, in loaf position; one of her legs is stretched out in front of her, and she is gazing at the camera with a mix of skepticism and disapproval mainly expressed by her eyebrows.]

Dearborn is sniffing you sniffing you sniffing you

[ID: A photograph in extreme close up of most of Dearborn the tortie's head; she is sniffing the camera lens, so only her eyes, forehead, and part of her muzzle are visible in blurred focus.]

The face of a cat who gives no fucks.

[ID: Polk the tabby is crouched on the bedspread, mostly covered with a grey t-shirt (my beloved new Cambridge University shirt I got in April). Only her face is visible, ears covered by the hem of the shirt, and her mouth is open to yell at me for taking her picture. She looks like a dragon emerging from a cave.]